Three Cheers for the 208

There are officially twelve days between me and departure from the puddle capital of the world. To say that I am excited would be an understatement.

I am ecstatic. I'm am jubilant. I can hardly contain myself every time I remember I have a little less than two weeks.

Portland's been nice, but I cannot wait to get back to Idaho.

After ridiculing my home state for years, I am fiercely proud to call the Gem State my home. Yes, Idaho has some severe flaws- namely, the state government- but it's home for me. After living in a city, a real one that has few, if any, connections to what "rural" really is, I feel like the people who do not think cattle on the highway is an unusual sight are in short supply. I've been told over the years that us hicks know nothing of the world around us. After experiencing people who cannot think much farther beyond their immediate settings, I've got to say, close-minded people can be found everywhere. They're like cockroaches. It doesn't matter whether you're in Hong Kong or Peru, you're going to find a few of the little suckers.

Liberals can be just as close-minded as conservatives. In my opinion, close-minded liberals are worse. A close-minded neo-con might be racist and might think Christianity is the only belief out there worth mentioning, but close-minded liberals will dump paint on people who wear leather or fur. They're both bad. I grew up with a fair amount of conservatives. My best friend is conservative, and he says things that make me want to clock him.

But I don't. I'm polite. I've been raised to accept the existence of countering view points. Some of the people I've encountered in Idaho are not quite so accepting. I was once told I was going to hell because I don't live like "good Christians." (Speaking of which, what the hell happened to the whole, "love thy neighbor" shit?) Luckily, I don't believe in hell, so I'm not too worried.

Here in Portland, I've also been verbally assaulted by people whoa re shocked to find out that I disagree with them. I don't think capitalism is bad. I think corrupt capitalism is bad. Corrupt anything is bad. I don't think we should all go live on farms. I've been on real farms. They smell horrible. I'd much rather go be an anthropologist than milk cows. Sorry, but it's the truth. I enjoy our stratified labor system. I'm okay with buying food at a store. Honestly, I have more important things in my life than making sure I am entirely self-sustained.

But, as is often the case, I digress.

I cannot wait to get back to Idaho. I can't wait to see my friends and family. I cannot wait to see my lizard, and my dogs, and my cat. I can't wait to go up to my cabin and get a good breath of fresh mountain air.

Fun fact- Portland has a worse air quality than Los Angeles. Good job.

I also cannot wait to be more than 50 feet above sea level. I swear to god, the low altitude has been causing a huge percentage of my migraines. I like living around mountains. The ocean is nice, but nothing beats those craggy peaks and twisting roads.

I've been staying connected to the City of Trees via the Boise Weekly online. It's great- I can stay connected to the restaurant and music scenes from five hundred miles away.

The other day, well, okay, a few weeks ago, they interviewed NPR's Renee Montagne. I personally love her, and I was sad that she was in Boise while I was not.

Someone commented on the article that they hoped the author taught her how to properly pronounce "Boise." According to this commenter, it's pronounced with a soft S, rather than a Z.

I disagree. I say it both ways, and I am from Boizeee.

The commenter's clever moniker was "The Native Idahoan." After reading this, I cam to two conclusions:

1. I am willing to bet this person is incredibly arrogant and I would most likely throttle "Native" until he/she could not breathe.

2. He/She is probably from California.

I mean, how rude is it, after reading how this person got to interview one of the most widely-known radio people in our age to say, "I hope you taught her how to say 'Boise.'" He/She/It claims that only people who moved to town pronounce it with a Z.

Well, then.

BOIZEE BOIZEE BOIZEE.

Alright, I got that out of my system.

Reading some other comments on various articles, I realized that not very many of the commenters have lives beyond the internet.

One of the most heavily-commented sections is Bill Cope's corner of the BW universe. Admittedly, he has said things in the past that have made me roll my eyes. This said, I admire the fact that he puts himself out there and writes what he feels. You don't see any of the cute neo-con commenters using their real names. One of the most frequent ones is some human by the name of Patience Dogood.

I'm sorry, but unless you are Zombie Ben Franklin, fresh from the grave, you have no right to use that moniker. It is taken. Please go read some Shakespeare and gain some creativity.

The next thing I wonder about these people is why are they wasting their time reading a clearly-liberal editorial writer? Don't they have a tea party to attend?

So, yes, Idaho has some decidedly-backwards people. We have some progressive people, too. We have the hippies in the North End of Boise, we have celebrities up at Sun Valley, we have Mormons in the south, and neo-Nazis in the north. Idaho is the state where weirdos go to find some space.

And that's okay. I'm a weirdo, too.

Being from Idaho keeps things in perspective. The mayor of Portland is under fire for having an affair with a coworker. Yes, this is naughty, but the governor of Idaho would happily do away with public education. One of our governor hopefuls wanted Fish and Game to issue Obama hunting tags. Those are politicians with issues. Affairs are naughty, but who the hell cares? I'd rather have a guy who gets around than a guy with the IQ of his tight-fitting jeans.

It seems incredible to me, but I prefer living with conservatives to living with liberals.

Don't get me wrong, I still think ATVs are ridiculous. I will never think that fridges belong on the porch. I hope country "music" dies a horrible, fiery death. This said, I'd rather live around someone who can drive a tractor than someone who thinks owning a chicken makes you a farmer.

Blog of the Dead: A Salute to Zombies

Let us talk about my favorite genre of fiction- zombie stories.

I love zombies. Absolutely love them. 28 Days Later is, in my opinion, the best movie ever made by man. I mean, Danny Boyle directed it. Danny Boyle, the man who brought us Slumdog Millionaire, gave the world the best movie ever. It is not just a zombie movie- it is a work of art. He uses unique filming techniques and an unusual selection of music. It's incredible. It's my idea of a romantic movie- I mean, come on, only a man who really, truly loves you will kill the undead with his bare hands for you.

Zombies are the greatest. Anthropologically, it's the ultimate "us" versus "other" situation. Psychologically, it embodies our fears of death and the afterlife with the mental dilemma of whether or not reanimated corpses still contain some fragment of the person we knew. Entertainment-wise, there's nothing better than adrenaline-fueled sequences of gore and screaming.

And then there are the masters of zombie fiction. George A. Romero, for starters, who brought us Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead (and it's remake), and all of its subsequent sequels. He gave us The Crazies, a film not necessarily about zombies, but pretty damn close. Just for good measure, he remade that one, too. You know a director is dedicated to his genre when he's the one remaking his movies.

And then there's Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. I own the former, and it's fantastic. The latter, however, is a true masterpiece. Brooks uses it to critique various governments and the different cultures that span our globe. I love it. Zombie infection is a global problem, and he depicts localized responses to it.

Finally, there are all of the independent and B-list movies. Bad filming, low budget costumes and effects, and cliched scripts are a huge part of what makes this genre. The fake blood, the unrealistic wounds, the well-known roles characters must fill- the weak one, the leader, the person with alterior motives, the dumb one who does as he's told, and the dumb one who's stubborn and is eventually eaten.

Zombie stories are the best medium for examining humanity, in my opinion. A bad zombie movie is simply a festival of gore, which itself can be entertaining, but a good zombie movie can explore everything from gun control, to functionality of government, to xenophobia. In Land of the Dead, zombies are learning how to use tools and weapons. It begs the question, are they really so different from us? Or are they simply doing to us as we did to the Neanderthals?

Like I've said, I love zombie stories. I've written a few of my own. I have an emergency "In Case of Zombie" plan. My friend has a blog devoted to zombies. Obsessed? Well, yes I am. I've loved zombie movies ever since the 7th grade. There's just something undeniably satisfying about them. There's a Facebook group called "Some Days I Wish I Could Just Go Kill Zombies." I am totally zombie-crazed, but that's okay. It could be a lot worse. I could be obsessed with dressing up like comic book characters. Worse still, I could be obsessed with Twilight.

Nope, I'm okay with being zombie crazed. It's not like I'm out of touch with reality or anything. I know zombies aren't real.

But if they are, you know I'll be the first one to say, "I told you so."

What Fools These Mortals Be

Today was "National Explain Magnets to a Juggalo Day," in case you hadn't heard. That's okay, I didn't know it was until a few hours ago, either.

For those of you fortunate enough not to know what a Juggalo is, I will explain. Juggalos are people that follow the band Insane Clown Posse. It's actually turned into somewhat of a cult. Genereally, their followers are on the lower end of the education spectrum, have a tendency to speak in a violent manner, and, as one of the band's latest songs informed us knowledgeable folk, they do not understand what magnets are.

Here is a link for you, it's a semi-valuable waste of nine minutes of your life- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WXoMp8Ews&feature=fvw.

Now that you have watched the video, you understand why I regard ICP (seriously, guys? what the hell is up with that name?) fans as uneducated individuals with bird-sized brains. These people are, for lack of a better term, idiots.

And they're not idiots we can ignore, either.

I don't agree with censorship of any kind. I think people are entitled to listen to what they want, read what they want, and say what they want. This said, making threats on the lives of other people is illegal. Over the last few years, there have been various incidents where people have been beaten, and sometimes killed, for pointing out the plain truth about ICP- it's the poorest excuse for entertainment our species has ever seen.

Now, I normally have little to do with these people. In fact, the last time I had anything to do with a "Juggalo" was a former boyfriend of mine who listened to ICP and identified himself using that beyond stupid title. I informed him he could either date me, or stick with that crap- I refuse to have anything to do with a group that promotes senseless violence and ignorants. From the snapshot of this "Juggalo" lifestyle that I got, I surmised a few things.

Juggalos are not smart. It's the truth. According to various sources, the average IQ in the US is 98. I'm thinking the entire mass of ICP fans falls well below this number.

Because they are not smart, Juggalos write off any form of intellect. Rather than respect the fact that experts spend years in school to know what they know, these imbecilic creatures regard all intellectuals as "elitists" and claim that experts are "lying." I hope ICP realizes this kind of thought is what created Cambodia's Killing Fields. Then again, I doubt either of those two buffoons have ever taken a world history class.

Juggalos claim to be tougher than everyone else. They frequently threaten to harm anyone who disagrees with them. I find this particularly interesting, because, at least on the internet, Juggalos tend to hide behind cute monikers like "Juggalette64." (Juggalettes are female versions of Juggalos. They are all the same except that the former generally wear bad make-up instead of bad face-paint.) As I have said before, the internet gives balls to those who would not otherwise have any. I generally use some form of my name as a screen-name, and I don't fear people. I had a "Juggalette" once threaten to "beat me up," and I welcomed the challenge. I don't mean to sound tough, I simply don't fear people. Especially not if they need the security of a name like "TwiztedGuy" to feel brawny.

I guess one of the biggest reasons I burst out laughing at these people is not what they call themselves (Juggalo.... Who else thinks "male prostitute?") but the effort they put into adhering to their standards. They wear ridiculous clothing and far too much stage make-up. They all gel their hair into disgusting, spiky masses. The best part is, they claim that everyone else in society is conforming, and that they are unique individuals. I cannot help but laugh. Here they are, investing thousands into buying music, special clothes, hair dye, face paint, and merchandise, and they claim they are not conforming to some standard. I suppose it boils down to the fact that they are as educated as rocks, but still. I'm a strong believer in researching something before you make a claim.

Some fo them try and say that their way of life is a kind of subculture. I'm an anthropology major, and I'm all for respecting cultures. However, the ICP following is no such thing. Every aspect of it has been manufactured. Every part relies heavily on participation within the capitalist system, something their own followers claim to be against. The "Juggalo Way of Life" is a sham. It's a gimmick. There is no creativity involved.

And now, forgive me for being arrogant. It angers me whenever people attempt to tell others how to live, and as much as I despise ICP and their lemming-like followers, I respect their right to exist. What makes me mad is the fact that they not only tolerate, but preach violence and hate. And while the band members themselves say they have the right to sing whatever they like, the fact that their followers practice violence and intolerance is disgraceful. The song I posted preaches against science and expertise and promotes ignorance. This I cannot tolerate. People who preach ignorance, especially people who have a following, deserve to lose their rights as citizens. Those two morons have no right to be spreading hate.

And, luckily for me, no one reads my blog. I'm sure that if an ICP fan out there (really with the name?) read this, I'd get some kind of hate-mail describing how he/she would "kick my ass." Honestly, I wouldn't care. Like I've said, I'm not afraid of people. They can threaten intellectuals all they want, but luckily, trailer trash never amounts to much in the bigger picture.

Again, I apologize for the arrogance and the momentary outburst of anger. It just gets annoying when I think of how hard experts work to recreate ideas about the world, only to have deranged asses like those of ICP try and destroy modern knowledge with moronic lyrics and merchandise.

Glenn Beck is The Voice of Reason? What the Hell is In the Water?

I watch The View. We all know this. I am secretly an old lady. My greatest desire is to have a Snuggie. (Not really)

Barbra Walters is an adorable, partially-clueless old lady. Sherri Shepherd occasionally says intelligent things. Elizabeth Hasselbeck is mostly an airhead, but at least she is a good mom. And Whoopi. Need I say more about Whoopi Goldberg?

And then there is Joy Behar. Most of the time, I agree with her. I mock her thick New Yorker accent. She's entertaining.

But the other day, she opened her mouth about something that made me realize she should stick to comedy and leave intellectual debate to us grown-ups.

They were discussing the would-be Times Square bomber. I call him "would-be" because he didn't actually bomb anything. To be honest, that had to be the most pathetic attempt at terrorism that I have ever seen. I mean, for fuck's sake, I cause more terror when driving on the connector on a fresh layer of snow. The dimwit should have stuck with something simple. Like dynamite. Or McDonald's. Hey, it takes awhile, but heart disease will kill more people this year than any silly bomb.

All Osama has to do to cause another media circus and mild panic is release a video tape. But this fool, Faisal, couldn't even blow up a car. He should have hired some Manchester United fans. They would have taught him some things about properly destroying cars. And then supposedly he's connected to the Pakistan installment of the Taliban. One would imagine that their leaders would be backing away from this so fast they'd leave skid marks. Who wants to claim responsibility for the world's most epic fail?

I don't mean to make light of someone attempting to blow up a clunker SUV in tourist central. I'm just pointing out that this was pretty much the worst recorded case of terrorism ever. The man sucked at making bombs, the people on the ground in New York reported the SUV, and the FBI caught our wannabe anarchist in record time. I mean, talk about the best anti-terror response time I've ever seen. Nothing was harmed, the dumb-ass was caught, so one would think that we could just all chill the fuck out.

But oh, no, Americans suck at chilling out. We have perfected the act of over-thinking things. We invented the "What If" game. You would think we'd all be shitting diamonds, with all this intensity.

John McCain (and others) claims the FBI screwed up by reading this idiot his Miranda Rights. Somehow, our Crazies-In-Residence seem to think we could have better pumped him of information has we not informed him of his Constitutionally-given rights. Funny enough, all the reports coming out have stated he's been entirely cooperative.

Now, a Miranda warning is pretty much a no-brainer- you don't give someone their Miranda rights before interrogation, and anything he says is guaranteed to be inadmissible in court. There have been plenty of court cases dismissed on the technicality of the accused not being given their rights. In the case of a moron who tried to bomb a public area, not giving him his Miranda warning could, in essence, allow him to walk away unscathed. Is that really what you want, John McCain? Funny, the actual court case that gave us the Miranda warning was Miranda v. Arizona. How easily they forget.

Anyway, back to The View. Joy claimed that while he may be a naturalized citizen, our government still should have been monitoring him. Basically, her attitude was that because he had ties to a volatile region in Pakistan, and he wasn't "born here," his citizenship should be conditional.

I'm sorry, Ms. Behar, but citizenship isn't conditional. You either are, or you are not. He's a citizen, and should be treated like a citizen. You didn't see them arguing over Timothy McVeigh's citizenship, and he actually killed people.

All this side, my biggest beef with Behar was this: Whoopi said that Miranda warnings are a part of your constitutional rights, to which Joy claimed that Whoopi was wrong, it has nothing to do with the Constitution, and that it is just a law. This, of course, is absolute bull. Miranda warnings are an extension of the Constitution; specifically, Miranda warnings are in place to guarantee the observance of the accused's fifth and sixth-amendment rights. One would think the staff at The View has access to the internet. Maybe even Wikipedia. It angers me when a program with thousands, if not millions, of viewers misrepresents the facts.

And so, Joy Behar is a moron, just like Faisal Shahzad. Her biggest problem is that she is a comedian, not a reporter, and certainly not a scholar. She doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. If she doesn't want to research something, she has no right to talk about it. For so many people, shows like The View are a major source of news. There are people out there who, unlike myself, take this show seriously. Blatant ignorance should not be tolerated. Xenophobia amplifies ignorance.

I might just be a college student with a blog, but I never form an opinion, much less express an opinion, unless I've researched the topic. God gave us Google for a reason. I realize how alarmed New Yorkers must have been by the actions of this idiot and his SUV, but that is no reason to spew bullshit. Especially when Glenn Beck is the one defending the observance of Miranda laws. I mean, you know you're in for a world of hurt when the voice of media reason is Glenn Beck.

Suck It, Whore. I Don't Need No Vaccine.

So just as I hit "Post" on my last entry, a commercial interrupts a rerun of "Royal Pains." It's this goofy medical show I watch. It's not House, but it's not half bad.

"What if you meet someone?" the commercial says. "What if he likes you too? What if he gives you HPV?"

For fuck's sake, people. Shut up about the stupid Human Papillomavirus. WE GET IT ALREADY. STDs are bad. I went to Health class all through junior high and high school.

For one, I think it is ridiculous that a drug company can post commercials masquerading as informational when all they're trying to do is sell you another drug. Yes, in case you didn't notice, Merck pays for those OBNOXIOUS commercials. This is like if Camel paid for a commercial that talked about how nicotine makes people happy and alleviates the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. I mean, does this whole bit shout "Ethical Dilemma" to anyone else? Never-mind that the vaccine only protects against a few of the various types of HPV. Never-mind that it has been shown to not actually work for some populations of people. Never-mind that it claims to be a vaccine against cervical cancer when it isn't. They don't feel the need to actually say any of these facts, because the commercial was written by a drug company, not medical personnel. I feel like this is the equivalent of Viagra saying that their product will cause you to always sleep with attractive females.

Also, this whole HPV vaccine doesn't address any real problems. It's right in line with the whole "abstinence- only" education strategy. Rather than teach people how to be responsible about sex, we're just going to vaccinate them and not talk about it. You wouldn't get HPV if you wore a condom and knew with whom you're having sex. If you know your partner, and you get tested regularly, and you're partners get tested, then you know what is going on medically in everyone's pants. And yes, I realize we are all immature and no one in this country can talk about sex with a straight face. I'm serious, too. Come on. Say penis and then say vagina with a straight face. If you didn't just giggle, even a little, I will give you a cookie.

We're so nervous about talking about sex that we behave like a bunch of children. I'm tired of people acting like no one has sex unless they're married. Welcome to the human race, people. Humans have sex. It happens. Humans pass each other diseases when they have sex. Conveniently, at some point we invented small rubber jackets that prevent the spread of disease. Inconveniently, for some odd reason, some religions have decided that these are somehow a bad thing. Inconveniently, our education system refuses to teach people how to use these seemingly simple devices.

I'm so sick of people having fourteenth-century attitudes about the twenty-first century. Come on, people! We have a president who has a high melanin content! Not only did we get Facebook, but we can also use it on devices the size of our hands. The Vatican has its own radio station, for fuck's sake. So does the LDS Church. You would think that if they can embrace some technological advances, they could at least tolerate some others.

Okay, I realize that the day the Mormons accept condoms is the day the Earth itself ignites on fire and burns out of oblivion. But here's to wishful thinking.

The US has a higher teen pregnancy rate than any other developed nation on the planet. If our government really wants to do something about this, they'll start offering comprehensive sex education. They should do this, and declare those god-awful commercials illegal.

Honestly, I do not care that the chick in the video is pretending that she has cervical cancer. I hope that she really gets cancer, for profiting off someone else's misfortune. These commercials are just stupid, and they're obnoxious. There's nothing I hate more than a misleading commercial.

Honestly, I'd rather go back to Trojan condom ads and the "Viva Viagra" song. They're more entertaining, and while they are over the top, they aren't trying to scare anyone into buying something.

City Slickers and Farmers

So, there are a few hippies in Portland.

Yes, I am being glib. Yes, this is a bit tongue in cheek.

Saying there are a few hippies in Portland is like saying there are a few dogs at the Westminster Dog Show. Portland is progressive. We recycle everything. There are two different buttons on the toilets that change how much water is used. The light-bulbs are the kind that burst out unflattering light and last for forever. There is a giant farmer's market across the street from where I live.

As far as cities go, this is a pretty "green" thinking one.

So it's understandable that people here are fairly idealistic. I mean, how can you want to be extreme about your carbon footprint and NOT be an idealist?

As you know, we're talking about the Zapatista movement. Last time, I was pretty upset. In fact, I'm still pretty upset. But that's beyond the point. The Zapatistas were interested in making it so the indigenous people of the Chiapas region could be able to farm the land that belongs to them in a way that would be sustainable to their community. The Mexican government was (and still is) interested in giving this land to companies that will turn it into industrialized farms. This is not the model the indigenous Mayan people want. Obviously.

So my class (filled with hippies) got into this discussion about farming practices and urbanization. We talked about the fact that the Zapatistas have used the internet to transmit their cause to the world. The consensus amongst some of my classmates was that urbanization is bad and we should all have our own plots of land so we can be "sustainable."

So, my opinion of all of this is that subsistence farming works for Chiapas. It doesn't necessarily work for the US. But that doesn't mean that we are in some kind of wrong and they are in the right. Nor does it mean we're right and they're wrong.

When it comes to culture, there is no "right" answer. I feel like I've stressed this before, but I'll mention it again. We cannot pass judgement on a culture unless we have lived a life there and we can truly relate to their way of life. Not to mention, any kind of comparison is ethnocentric; you cannot make a claim that some culture is "wrong" or "right" unless you're using your own culture as a comparing base.

And it is pretty entertaining to listen to a bunch of city kids talk about how wonderful subsistence agriculture is. It's pretty funny to listen to people who have no clue about farming talk about how it is the best way to live.

I grew up in Boise, Idaho. We all know this. And after struggling with my identity for what felt to be an eternity, I will be the first to say I am a hick. I've been to Cabela's. I have a knife collection. I have had to herd cattle before, and I've seen a bear on my porch. I've ridden a horse; for the record I hated it. I've gone on hayrides. I've been to corn mazes. Stetsons are cool. Guns aren't a big deal. I am a hick. It's okay; quite frankly, it could be worse. But I am also a city kid. I grew up in a city- as small as it may be, Boise's still a city. I found amusement in dropping things off the roofs of parking garages. I can jay-walk like a New Yorker.

And so I feel I have a foot in each realm. I can relate to a rancher and an accountant. So when I hear someone romanticize farming, I can't help but laugh.

I mean, are you kidding me?

Without urbanization, we would not have most of our modern medical technologies. Or laptops. Or those infernal iPads.

Farming is necessary for our society. But it isn't easy. The people making these claims have probably not dealt with rogue cows. My guess is that if handed a shotgun, they would flip out. These are the kind of people who are shocked to find out I carry a three-inch knife in my pocket. It's silly.

My mom pointed out a good thought. Most cities on the Pacific Coast tend to think along East Coast lines. They're not like Denver or Salt Lake. They don't know many ranchers. When these people talk about farms, I can't help but think of a Vermont dairy farm. They're thinking of some clean little farmhouse and the big red barn. I have some news for these people- this isn't what farming looks like in the West. In the West, if you live in a rural area, you go to the grocery store, like Costco, once a month. You drive an F-150. You probably own a tractor.

And it is not a nice life. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good things about it. But there are a few bad things, too. The opportunities at Cascade High School are not quite as numerous as those found at Boise High. 4H is pretty big. You neighbor is probably a good fifteen-minute walk away.

City people tend to view rural life through rose-colored glasses. Take, as an example, a family up at my cabin that is from Eagle, Idaho. Now, they are from the new Eagle- the one that involves planned communities and stucco-covered buildings. The one that looks like someone flew it up from California. Now, these people bought property out in the middle of nowhere and built a log cabin- not Little House on the Prairie style, more like plasma screen in every room style. They put a salt-lick on their porch because they thought it would be cute if they got some deer to come and visit. Because, you know, we all love Bambi.

Instead, they got a dozen cattle camped out around their place. The fence was down a ways down the line, and the cattle figured shade and a block of salt was as good as it gets. The guy who owned the place was furious and immediately tried to sue the owners of the cattle. The wrong owners. In the wrong county.

I mean, what did he expect? If he wanted tame wilderness, (oh, the irony) he should have bought a place in McCall. Or Sun Valley. Or Pasadena. Here he was, romanticizing what a place in the middle of nowhere should look like. Instead, what he got was reality. And he tried to sue someone over it.

People from a rural setting are probably going to go with what they know; same thing with people from an urban setting. We can only help but romanticize the other side of the fence- certainly, I thought moving to Portland and living in a city would be awesome. Instead, I realized I was happy with the culture in which I resided. I think that if we all just stopped trying to tell each other how to live, our own lives would get better. If you want to live on a farm, that's fine. But making an assertion like "everyone should live on farms" is like saying "everyone should only be in heterosexual relationships" or "everyone should vote Republican." I'm tired of listening to people talk about what everyone else is doing wrong. Why don't we all work on what we're doing in our own lives.

And, I realize I'm rambling. Again. I guess I just think it's interesting when people glamorize rural life, when for so long I glamorized what it would be like to live in a city. There's no right way to live life, and the sooner we stop telling each other how to live, the better.

America and Mexico: A Love/Hate Story.

So, I'm an anthropology student.

Yes, I am certain we all know this. I'm studying people. It is fascinating. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love lizards. Reptiles are, for lack of a better term, the shit. Same thing with bats. Canines are pretty cool, too.

But no other species is as complex as the human. I feel I can say this safely- you don't see monitor lizards dividing into groups based on who worships what god and building shrines. I'm not going to say we have dominated the planet, because we regularly have our butts serves to us by volcanoes (thanks, Iceland), earthquakes, hurricanes, and the pig sniffles. This said, we've done a fair job of manipulating the top layer of the Earth. This is a positive and/or a negative thing. I'm not going to lie, I'm a big fan of cars, but it is rather silly of us to use up resources we know won't exist forever. It is ignorant of us to muck up the only air we've got.

All this aside, we are pretty incredible. I don't mean incredible as in "we're so rad," but I mean incredible as in "we are a massive force with which to be reckoned." In our existence of approximately 200,000 years, we've come a long way. We have become increasingly complex. We've moved from the manipulation of rocks to the manipulation of sub-atomic particles. All ethics aside, that is pretty cool.

In southern Mexico, there is a region called Chiapas. It is home to a large group of indigenous people- they far outnumber the state of Idaho. These people have no real system of education, let alone running water. Life is pretty harsh.

Now, I am sure you've heard about the Zapatista uprising of the 1990's. This happened just as the US, Canada, and Mexico entered the North American Free Trade Agreement. Now, I'm not going to explain it all, because that would take far more time than I am interested in giving. If you were not an adult, or at least a cognitive being, during the 90's, Google it. The internet is filled with information.

It boils down to this: here is a group of people fighting for their way of life, and the Mexican government is perfectly okay with abusing them. More than ten years later, nothing has changed. If anything, the situation has gotten worse. Mexico is nearly a failed state. The drug cartels rule the streets, and people in Mexico have nothing. I mean, nothing. Some people have no shoes to wear. They cannot even write their names. As someone whose livelihood will potentially rely on my ability to write, the thought of not being able to so much as sign my name makes my stomach knot.

The only real solution anyone in this situation can see is to risk his life to come to the US in search of work. Let's face it: illegal immigrants from Mexico do the jobs no one here is willing to do. Sure, I would go out and do manual labor like yard work, but not at the wages people want to pay. We hear politicians and uninformed Americans claim that "illegal immigrants are taking our jobs," but they aren't. They're picking up the slack by working the bottom-of-the-barrel jobs we aren't willing to do.

And I do not support this model for multiple reasons. Having people that are willing to do a job at any price degrades the value of labor for the rest of us. Having people who are not formally part of our country throws the system out of whack. When a person who is here illegally has a child, that kid is an American, regardless of what some would say. This causes the child to either be forced to move out of its own country, or be forced into a broken system like foster care.

However, the solution is not what the state of Arizona would have us believe. Their way of doing things causes racial profiling and creates a more volatile environment for everybody, not a safer one. It is akin to the "abstinence only" education policy. It's not fixing the problem at the right spot. The solution to immigration is not kicking people out or building a higher wall- we need to examine why people from our southern border would rather put their lives in the hands of scum like coyotes, and risk their lives in the dangerous desert lands around the border, than use legal methods to come here. We ought to be helping Mexico regain order and be able to provide for their people. We ought to make paths to citizenship easier.

When our own neighbors are suffering as badly as the country of Mexico, we have no right to be invading nations half a world away. Nowhere else in the world do you see such a huge difference between average incomes as you do between the US and Mexico. Even most of our homeless make more money than our neighbors to the south.

I realize that times are hard here in America. We have not had a financial crisis this bad in some time. People are taking huge hits because of the faulty system we built. However, in all this debt, in all this turmoil, we still have shelters for those who have lost their homes. In cities across America, we have places that try to get food to those who need it. If a person is ill or injured, we have ERs that will take them. We do not appreciate just how high our standard of living really is. It sickens me to listen to people in this country- mostly white, mostly men- complain about how "bad the Mexicans are." We aren't appreciating the other side of the argument- the side where a person is willing to leave his home and family, risk his life, and be treated like dirt in a foreign country just so he can provide for his folks back home. No, it is not alright that people are coming into our country illegally, because it disables the system. But it is equally unfair for us to flaunt our wealth in the face of a neighboring nation and then criticize its people for wanting a tiny piece of what we have. We go to Mexico to take advantage of their relaxed liquor laws, their cheap medications, their resorts built on the backs of the poor, and we claim to understand them. I have heard white people who live in gated, protected communities down there claim that they somehow relate to the people who live in shacks built from reeds and cardboard only a few miles away. So many of us see two Mexicos- the colorful parts preserved for tourists, and the faces of the immigrants looking for something better in a foreign place. We get so wrapped up in these two stereotypes that we forget these are humans. Mexico has had its own struggles. They have their own problems with discrimination. The people there, particularly those in Chiapas, suffer in true squalor. We cannot relate. None of us. Those who claim to be "gangsters" have no clue. Even those who are considered "poor" in this country have so much more than the people just next door.

I am so enamored with humankind; we are truly the most powerful species on this planet, for better or worse. My amazement turns to disgust, however, when I think of what we are capable of doing to one another. We can do so much for each other- think the aid after the earthquake in Haiti- but we are capable of being just as cruel as we are kind. You won't see bats kill each other because they believe in different gods. You're not going to see frogs execute an entire population of their same species simply because they have different ideals on the right way to live.

We are capable of passing laws that essentially authorize ethnic profiling because we dehumanize that ethnicity. Illegal immigrants are not people with mothers and fathers and siblings and children to Rush Limbaugh or Lou Dobbs. They aren't people who have friends, and like to play soccer. They're just a bunch of things, objects. It's a lot easier to discriminate against an entire population when you don't have to think about them as people.

But we are also capable of protesting in the thousands when someone discriminates. We are capable of gritting our teeth and banding together because we do see other groups as people, rather than just a population. We are capable of getting in trucks and bringing aid to people when our government drops the ball.

And after contemplating all of this, after listening to just how awful a government can be to its people, my blood boils. It makes me want to get in a truck and go down there myself. It makes me feel guilty to be living in a dorm with indoor plumbing and a heater.

But then I realize I'm an anthropology student. I'm not going to school to be able to get a good job or make a lot of money- I'm here to learn how to speak for people who cannot adequately speak for themselves. I am part of the most privileged group on Earth; I'm a white kid in upper-middle class America. I feel, not just duty-bound, but impassioned to learn about other people and help them. Anthropologists are not just aid workers or sympathizers- we are empathizers. I have been told that my loyalty lies with the people I'm studying, and I think this is true. I'm not out to use a culture to prove some point, and I'm not out to change the attitudes of the culture. I'm out to try as best as I can to be one of them, try to understand them, and finally, to try and explain their goals in terms my own culture can understand. I'm in school because I want to be able to go to places like Chiapas, learn how to relate to the people, and try and help them in the Western world. It is a hell of a lot harder for someone to disregard a white person with a doctorate than an indigenous person with no shoes.

And I realize this has been long-winded and has wandered a bit. I'm angry. I'm having to justify to myself why I'm in school, rather than on the front-lines. I guess I felt that my justification needs to be shared with at least one other person in order for it to feel authentic. It's easy to be an angry American sitting at a desk ranting on a computer. It's a lot harder to be an angry American sitting at a desk ranting on a computer who feels she should be somewhere else.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this. I hope, as always, that my words have entertained, if not enlightened.